


As Far As You Can Run

by hybridshade (shimyaku)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Schmoop, Challenge Response, Denial of Feelings, Escape, F/M, Fear, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Running Away, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimyaku/pseuds/hybridshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first day of renewed freedom approaches, and Neal finds himself unable to cope. He runs.</p><p>Written for 'run the con' challenge at LJ</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Far As You Can Run

**Title:** As Far As You Can Run  
 **Pairing:** Peter/El/Neal, Neal/OCs  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Warnings:** angsty!Neal, mentions of Neal being with OMC/OFC,  
 **Word count:** 2.3k~  
 **Summary:** His first day of renewed freedom approaches, and Neal finds himself unable to cope. He runs.  
 **A/N:** Written for [](http://theatregirl7299.livejournal.com/profile)[**theatregirl7299**](http://theatregirl7299.livejournal.com/) s prompt ‘the edge of the earth’ over at comm [](http://run-the-con.livejournal.com/profile)[**run_the_con**](http://run-the-con.livejournal.com/). A great prompt! But a challenge for the fact that I've been manically writing for another fandom lately and it was tough to change headspaces, so I hope this turned out okay!

 

It's less than twenty-four hours before the anklet comes off when something inside Neal snaps.

He spends countless minutes standing naked in the shower stall, pushing his forehead against the white tile and willing it to liquefy and swallow him up. Truth be told he isn't great with making emotional decisions, and now is no exception.

There's not a wink of sleep to be had, and he barely manages to loop enough thread through his disposition to hold himself together, but somehow he does. And it works. And everyone's so cheerful about it except the one who it's supposed to matter to the most: Neal himself.

=\\\=

Peter unlatches the anklet just after lunch, handing it back to the Marshall who's come to collect it, hurriedly signing off all the necessary papers. Neal gets more than a few enthused pats on the back, and Diana informs him that there'll be drinks after work at the fancy new wine bar across the street – it's a perfect opportunity to celebrate after all.

Neal nods graciously as he's expected to, and commends himself for having the foresight to tell Peter several weeks earlier that he didn't want the office to make a big deal out of things. He'd half expected to walk in on a room full of balloons and streamers when he'd arrived that morning despite his request, but he's glad he didn't.

He goes through the motions for the rest of the afternoon, thankful no one notices the building panic behind his eyes. Diana and Jones are nattering about something behind their backs, and Peter makes jokes about all the mortgage fraud cases they've got piling up. As if today's no different than any other.

Neal starts getting an uncomfortable twitch in his hands and it's somewhere around the four o'clock mark that he finds he can't take it anymore and decides to make his move.

At four-oh-nine he disappears. From the office. From the city. From the country as a whole.

He's a little upset about the wine bar, but not enough to turn back.

=\\\=

"Anything?"

"No, not a word. It's been two weeks already and not a _single word_. No clues or puzzles this time, just completely without a trace. I'm this close to thinking someone got to him, but there's no evidence to back me up, and it's not like he hasn't disappeared before is it?"

"Peter, if that's what's happened, I'm sure he's got his reasons."

"Reasons? Yeah, sure, he's probably got a whole bunch of reasons! And yet I can't help but feel like we missed something… Has _he_ said anything?"

"Who, Moz? He insists he doesn't know. He sounded pretty upset, actually."

"Great. Then I guess we just have to keep looking. Either way I'm not letting him go without a fight."

"Don't worry, sweetie. You've found him before, after all."

=\\\=

After sixty days haunting the cities of France, Neal finds himself hopping a train and landing in Vienna. It's cold as ice even in the daytime, but he still spends his hours scuffing his shoes over cobbled streets and marvelling endlessly at the architecture.

He'd dug up one of his old stashes back in Paris and found something low-key and innocuous to fence, so he's got a bag full of winter wardrobe back at the hotel, as well as a few small luxury items like his favourite high-end cologne. He almost feels like he's got a new lease on life, except that there are too many moments that remind him an awful lot of the old days – staying in back-alley hotels and crappy apartment blocks, living out of a go-bag, changing his name and date of birth every couple of weeks…

But he can't be angry about it when he's only got himself and his own weak heart to blame. At one point he'd been so convinced he'd never have to revert back to such tactics, but then _things_ had happened, and now he was on the run again. At least this time he wasn't a wanted felon. Having the police on your tail could be such a bother.

He stops that thought in its tracks and resolves not to think of police, or agents, or… yeah.

=\\\=

"We got a blip today, El. Just a small blip, but a blip all the same."

"A blip, huh? Do tell."

"A painting was fenced a few weeks ago in Paris. It was never confirmed, but it was thought to be among some of those stolen from a private collection in London about a decade ago."

"…Neal?"

"That's what I'm thinking. The problem being that it's already old information."

"You can probably still assume he's in Europe, though. And you of all people know how much he likes it over there."

"My thoughts exactly, hon, my thoughts exactly."

=\\\=

He backtracks to Switzerland at some point along the line and meets Johann out on the street. He's tall, blonde and blue-eyed and Neal thinks it ought to be funny the way they end up staring endlessly into each other's eyes. Johann's a local and he generously offers Neal a place to stay, but as it goes he never ends up needing the spare room he's offered – instead he decides that Johann's own sheets are far more desirable.

Neal spends a lot of time contemplating the nature of their relationship and whether he should be throwing himself into it as liberally as he has been. He knows it shouldn't technically be cheating, since nothing really happened back in New York, but promises _were_ made – even if they weren't made by him – and his being there rather than back in the US means he's caused at least one of said promises to be broken already.

When Johann comes to him he makes sure to lock all his guilt and anxieties away – the guy's been nothing but nice to him – but it doesn’t quite take away the wish that he was someone else. It was a wish that might have come true if he'd had the stomach to follow through, only that it hadn't been the right time and he'd had a million other excuses and he'd turned tail and ran like the chicken he was. Could he ever even go back?

Johann comes home one day with what he says is great news. When said great news turns out that he's received an overseas position in – of all places – New York, Neal can't manage to get his mouth around the 'congratulations' the other man deserves, simply sitting and staring in numb shock. Johann gets halfway through a spiel about Neal coming with him and showing him around his 'beautiful home country' before he notices, and Neal had no idea the blonde was so perceptive before he sits at his side and interlaces their fingers, asking him with the utmost honesty what kind of terrible pain it is that he's running from.

Neal can't find the right answer, may not even be sure what the right answer is, but what he _is_ sure of is that he can't stay here. Especially not with someone who knows he's running.

He can't go back yet. So it's time to move on.

=\\\=

"Another blip, El! A big one this time. He slipped up and booked a train ticket under one of his old aliases."

"That doesn't sound like the kind of mistake Neal would make, Peter. Are you sure it's him? Do think maybe he's trying to give you a sign or something?"

"I'm pretty sure it's him, my gut tells me it is. He cancelled the booking less than a minute after it was made but we still caught it. He's heading north now, up towards Russia."

"You better bring that man home to me, Peter Burke. It's cold in Russia, and I bet you any money he hasn't got any thermal underwear."

=\\\=

He's been slumming it in Moscow for several weeks when he literally stumbles into Irina. The Russian native thankfully has good English because his Russian is rusty at best. She's long-limbed and dark-haired and has more money than she knows what to do with – all thanks to her late husband who was seemingly some kind of nobleman.

It's only two days since he first met her, and one since he met her bedroom, that he finds out her husband only passed on a fortnight ago. He's left a little bit agape at that, but she just laughs like he's making a joke. She says that she recognises in him someone after her own heart – someone parted from the one he truly loves. Apparently she would never have taken him home if she feared he might actually fall for her.

He keeps her occupied for the remainder of the night, like any gentleman would, but that's as far as he can bear it. It's time to move on.

=\\\=

"What's the matter, sweetie?"

"We lost him, El. The guys I had looking into it were tracking a recently opened account in Moscow, but it was closed yesterday and the account holder's suddenly dropped off the face of the planet."

"Well, you wouldn't expect anything less, would you?"

"I guess not…"

"…Peter?"

"Mm?"

"I've been thinking a lot lately about why Neal left…"

"If you've got any idea I'd love to hear it."

"Well… do you remember the promise we made? Back at the beginning?"

"What prom-…? Oh, that one. Of course I do. How could I forget? We basically ambushed him with groping and kisses and... stuff."

"It occurred to me that it would've come due on the very day he left, that's all. It just seems significant somehow, don't you think?"

=\\\=

He stands on the edge of a cliff at Cape Point and looks out over the tumultuous water, watching the clash of the Indian and Atlantic oceans as they struggle against one another. Neal wonders if it would be too haughty of him to say that the sight is like a physical representation of the war going on in his heart, but decides it does indeed sound inflated and ridiculous, so he shrugs it off with a grin.

Something's been niggling at him ever since he arrived in South Africa – ever since he started heading south, period – and it occurs to him suddenly that this might be the farthest he can possibly go, the farthest he's ever been from the ones he loves.

It's a momentous occasion in some respects, for all that there isn't a person in sight and he can't hear a thing over the roaring of the oceans before him. He's standing on the edge of a precipice, but still can't quite bring himself to take the leap of faith he's confronted with, yet nor can he retreat back to the shallow safety of his life for the past year.

He kicks a rock off the edge, watches until it disappears into the white froth below, and turns around. It's time to move on, one last time.

=\\\=

He waits until after dark before he approaches the house, just to be sure they're both home, but the front door is pulled open before he even gets a chance to knock, Peter's expressionless face staring back at him with El poking her head around from behind him.

It's adorable but intimidating and Neal can't find the words – all the many apologies and excuses he'd prepared suddenly vanish into the ether.

"I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to knock," Peter starts, "I don't know how I knew you were out there – a gut feeling, maybe – but once you actually got to the door I thought I'd save you the trouble."

Neal still finds himself stuck, not a word passing over his tongue, but El clearly isn't worried, taking him by the wrists and forcibly pulling him inside so they can shut the door. She pats him down as if checking him for injury, then takes his hand in her own smaller one and levels him with a brutal glare.

"You're in big trouble, young man, running off like that without a word! We were worried sick!"

Neal's throat continues to jam up, but he manages to croak out a pitiful-sounding 'I'm sorry'. El's features drop immediately.

"Oh, we're sorry too, Neal. I'm pretty sure we know why you left-" she shares a look with Peter, "-and we want you to know that we should never have put you in a spot like that. When we promised that we'd be waiting once your sentence was over… we should have made sure you knew that it was up to you, you know? No expectations."

Peter clapped a hand over his shoulder from behind. "We didn't mean to pressure you. We just wanted you to know that we'd be here… if you still wanted us, that is."

Glancing from one to the other, it takes Neal but a moment to realise that they think he _doesn't_ want them anymore, and he scrambles to find the words to tell them how far they are from the truth.

"You're wrong," he blurted, "I just… I just wasn't ready. And the idea of being totally free again freaked me out. I couldn't cope. I had to get away to… to sort out my head. I'm sorry I ran. I just wasn't ready."

"And now?" Peter prompted.

Neal chanced a shaky grin. "I'm here, aren't I?"

It's like the weight of the world has lifted, and Neal feels as though he's walking on air as he's led forward into El's arms, her face burrowing into his chest while Peter encases him from behind, strong shoulders closing him in. Their circle's complete.

He ran as far as his legs could carry him, but it was a world too far away. He's where he belongs now and he couldn't be more sure of it, in the embrace of two lovers, at home.


End file.
